


Name in progress?

by Mageless



Category: The Big Bang Theory
Genre: F/M, Future Sheldon, I mean she comes back, Major character death - Freeform, Time Travel, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-22 23:31:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20330326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mageless/pseuds/Mageless
Summary: Sheldon had never cared about anyone. Not like he'd cared about Amy. She'd gotten behind his walls in a way he hadn't actually thought possible, not until he was too far gone to even want to be fixed.And then she was gone, and he felt like the person she had made him was fracturing into pieces. Pieces he would never put together again. Broken and unmoored, he could only think of one solution. Go back. It had been a crazy idea: A joke from a game from a drunken escapade. Now all he wanted was for it to work.--AKA Amy dies, and future Sheldon goes back in time to see the love of his life again. This project will be worked on in conjunction with my Lost & Found Spn fic since they both span over multiple seasons and require a LOT of rewatching (this is gonna KILL me. I'll try and get chapters out quick but not gonna lie it's gonna take... a while.





	1. Chapter 1

Sheldon stood looking at Amy, his _wife _Amy. He held her hands in his without thought to anything but the softness and warmth of her skin, the security of their grip, and the solidness of human contact that made him feel like that warmth could last forever and ever. He had thought that they could have kids, a family, maybe a dog named after a scientist he actually respected, or a character from star trek. Montgomery the Scot... 

Amy gasped, her breathe chocking, pulling him out of his reverie with crippling guilt and fear. He held her tighter, as if preparing to wrestle her out of the hands of death itself. He had so much he wanted to do, so many parts of himself he wanted to change. There was a little coin on his shelf: the Nobel prize had been such a large part of his life for so long that he couldn't imagine anything else being more important, and yet the moment he had won it his thoughts hadn't flow to it, or himself, but to her. The gleam of her jade green eyes as she smiled at him. He had thanked her in his speech, for making him a better man. He'd meant every word. Every last one. 

Yet now she was gone: letting go of his shaking hands as they whisked her off into surgery. Surgery she might never get of. All of his friends (and Howard) gathered around him, their posture nervous and their eyes worried. Penny looked like she could drink half a gallon of wine, Leonard like he wanted to pace a hole deep enough to rival the Mariana trench. He hated this. He hated the pain, the emptiness, the warbling in his stomach. Sheldon sat with his hands as he did something he did not do very often. He called his mother, and he prayed. 

"If anyone... _anyone _deserves to be on this planet it is her. I might believe in you... but she is too magnificent, too great, too important to me to be gone from this world. Don't you dare take her."

Hours passed, and the doctor came out with sad eyes and a hesitant countenance that even Sheldon could pick up on. He felt his eyes start to water as he broke into silent, intense, glaring sobs. 

\--

**Twelve years later:**

Eventually they'd all drifted apart; Bernadette had gotten a job offer overseas, Leonard had undertaken a research project in Switzerland... the Sheldon of before would have selfishly made them stay. Would have tricked and schemed and ruined their lives before letting them go. Now he just pulled a pseudo-smile filled with bitterness and let them go. 

He'd moved back into his apartment, eventually. He had wanted to be closer to the memories there, memories of her. Leonard's room had been filled with whiteboards full of equations and... other projects. He'd gotten one hell of a raise when he'd received the Nobel prize, and had continued to deliver remarkable results, all from the safety of his own home. Even if his heart was never really in the work. Apart from that the furniture had barely changed at all, but there were knick knacks dotted about that would cause heart rending grief whenever he looked at them. That horrendous tiara, the counterfactual cards... all of them to do with her. Amy. His wonderful, wonderful Amy. 

He looked at the machine in front of him. It was idiotic. Crazy. A joke from a game from a drunken escapade. Counterfactuals leading to alternate realities leading to dimensional travel via the brain. The body couldn't handle time travel, it'd be ripped apart, but what about the mind? Maybe it was something just a corporeal as his heart or lungs, maybe it was something more. Maybe minds could shift through realities. Maybe they could shift through time. To a world where Amy Farrah DFowler had lived, to a time where she had not yet died. Neuroscience and physics and engineering with a bit of what he was reluctant to admit was Howard's help. They'd been drunk, and tired. There was no way it would actually work, and _yet_. 

Sheldon carefully applied the electrodes to his head and chest, placing the letters to his friends and family alongside his will on his desk, looking at the wonderful lines of code before his eyes. He started the program on a twenty second delay and sat rigid, his arms stretched out straight by his sides, whilst on the inside he was certain of one hing. 

Amy Farrah Fowler was god damned worth it. 

And God would certainly damn him for this. 

Also, if this worked, they'd need to make an exception and give him another Nobel prize, as well as every other prize this world had to offer. 

... Also he was insane. 

Suddenly the pain hit, and Sheldon Lee Cooper, B.S., M.S., M.A, Ph.D and Sc.D screeched like a little girl, started spasming, frothed at the mouth then passed out. 

It would later be discovered that he had gone completely brain dead, and only Howard Wolowitz knew it wasn't suicide. 

He was chasing hope. 


	2. Chapter 2

When Sheldon woke up he wasn't on a chair in his apartment. It was in his bed, tucked into sheets he hadn't used in years, surrounded by whiteboards featuring equations long solved or disproved and comic books he was hundreds of issues ahead of. A wave of nostalgia hit him as he sat straight up only to fail miserably as his mind adjusted to having a much younger, weaker body. It had been a while since he hadn't had any grey hairs, but dear god had he been much fitter in the future. Sheldon felt stiff and inflexible and _weak. _Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to go for a run if there were no adverse affects to this... whatever this was. He momentarily thought about the moral implications of removing the 'younger Sheldon's' mind. Was it still rumbling around in there somewhere? Was it destroyed? Or had it merely been displaced? And if so where? Or when? 

He was pulled out of his thoughts by a heavy, annoying, disorderly knock at his door. Penny. A smile caught its way to his face as he heard her and Leonard talking about something or other as he finally made his way to his own door and opened it, just in time to see a tall, blonde, inebriated woman drag Leonard by the hand into his bedroom. He remembered this! Or did he? Suddenly Sheldon's mind was a mess: his neat, orderly, perfectly eidetic brain swirling and rumbling and... forgetting. 

"What is going on?" He muttered, rubbing his forehead as his stomach flipped in nausea, and yet his mind felt strangely _free_. Penny gave him a drunken glance before turning back round again with a single warning. "Put on your noise cancelling headphones, because it's gonna get loud." The memories fell into place as the door slammed shut and he grimaced, hoping he remembered where his headphones were really soon. "Ugh. Not this again."

Sheldon closed the door and got straight back into bed, staring at the ceiling in thought. Fortunately, the headphone had been on his cabinet, and he threw them on incredibly quickly. Religious or no, this was one mention of God he did most definitely did not want to hear. Had the transfer affected his mind? His intellect seemed intact, as much as he could tell, but his memories were a mess. Perhaps this... time travel had had a terrible consequence, or maybe, hopefully this was just a temporary side affect. Liker amnesia after a concussion. Amy would know the answer. Amy would connect electrodes to his head and give him a strawberry quick and smile as she asked him questions and Amy would be _there_. Memories flooded like a tide and he pushed them down and down and down but some of them he couldn't even remember. What if his friends asked him a question, a simple question, and he couldn't answer? Worse what if his friends asked him a question and he couldn't even remember who they were? He paused. He knew he was spiralling but his breath hitched anyway. He was going to have a panic attack, he could feel it. The nausea was getting worse. _Get a hold of yourself Cooper. You're too smart for this. Slow breathes in, slow breathes out. In... out... _He suddenly realised he was exhausted, and that time travel apparently had astounding jet lag, because once he calmed down he was asleep in seconds, and when he woke up it was with an astounding headache. 

\--

It was hard to pretend he wasn't thinking of her. Penny had been drunk and Leonard had been reasoning with something other than his brain so they hadn't noticed, but he had no idea how he was going to get through this day without running to her apartment, knocking on her door and throwing himself into her arms with the most crippling hug he could muster; and why shouldn't he? She was his wife! Except she wasn't. Not now, not yet. In a way he was lucky. He would be meeting her _again _tonight. How amazing an opportunity was that? He just had to find a way to make sure his friends didn't think he'd gone crazy and act normal, despite not entirely remembering what the normal of today was. If there was one benefit of having a strict schedule, it was knowing that for today, normal started with orange juice, so he made his way on over to the kitchen island and poured himself a glass of what he knew to be anything but low pulp. Fortunately he'd come to like the pulp. He hadn't come to like bad "butter" and burnt toast, but he was in too fantastic a mood to really care. He was going to see her today. HER. Finally. 

He heard those almost familiar footsteps with a smile. "Good morning, Penny!" _Thank you Vulcan hearing, but curse you for last night. _Those noise cancelling headphones had not worked at all. 

The blonde salesp- no, waitress in question was a combination of hungover and ashamed that he hadn't seen on her in a while. He wondered momentarily if it would be acceptable to hug her. Probably not. Both emotions were however likely amplified after being caught sneaking out of her ex's apartment, so evidently she was not a happy bunny. 

"Do you have eyes on the back of your head?" She groaned, her own head probably splitting. He distinctly remembered the feeling. 

"Yes, and a third ear at the base of my spinal chord. Would you like an English muffin?" Penny looked nauseous, enough to miss the attempt at humour. "Oh... thanks, I'm not hungry." He'd have thought not. 

"Hey Penny?" He asked, unable to help himself. She turned around, hands holding her heels like a possible deadly weapon. "Yes, Sheldon?" 

He'd wanted to make a joke about last night's escapades, include a certain choice word (yeehaw!) and watch her face turn redder than a Braeburn apple, but instead his face turned serious. More serious that she'd probably ever seen it. 

"He loves you, you know." Was all he said, but her face twisted in enough emotions to make him dizzy; surprise, shock, guilt... the faintest hint of the love that she'd one day send right back at him. He wasn't quite used to reading her younger face, would probably never be fully able to read faces at all, not like normal homo-sapiens, but penny was Different, she was _Penny._She was also gone, skulking off home with a complex look and a thoughtful frown. 

As one door closed another opened, and Sheldon smiled at the footsteps of his next victim. It'd been so long since he'd seen Leonard and Penny, and even longer since he'd seen them like this: confused, young, stupid. Although in his eyes they'd both always be a little stupid. Instead of saddening him he actually found them quite cute. Like kittens, learning to walk, or baby turtles coming out of their shells. 

"Good morning Leonard!" He greeted. His roommate was not amused. 

"How many times have I told you not to do that?" He glared, his messy hair flopping over his eyes as he readjusted his glasses. Sheldon thought about it and frowned. "I actually have no idea." Were the memories getting clearer or worse? Or maybe they were just different, he couldn't tell. Leonard looked disturbed though, so he let out a distinct Cooper laugh. "Bazinga. Counting this instance you have asked my four hundred and eighteen times." _It's not like he'll check. _

Leonard seemed to takes this for an acceptable answer, going to pour himself a drink. "Where's Penny?" He asked, making himself a drink. 

"I believe Penny is testing the hypothesis of whether it is possible to shower off the concept of regret with coconut scented shampoo, and apparently she doesnt want english muffins."

Leonard was absent minded. "No she doesn't use the coconut anymore... I wonder why she didn't say goodbye?" 

"Leonard asking me to explain human behaviour is like asking a blind man to explain the colour purple."

"I know I just thought as an outsider you might be able to provide a fresh perspective."

Another Sheldon laugh, and he left to his room. Leonard would be making a fool of himself soon enough, so he decide to spend the afternoon rewatching what to him were very, very old episodes of doctor who on his laptop. If he touched that dating website with a ten foot pole he knew he'd land himself in irreparable trouble., and there wasn't any work he could do since he was years ahead of any of the current science (provided he could actually remember it). The problem was that he was just too excited. His attention span was getting shorter and shorter, his mind getting cloudier and cloudier the more the time passed. By the time he heard Leonard leave all he had been doing was staring at a wall and humming _Darlin_, by the beach boys. 

"Uh oh. She wants to meet us." _Show time._

"Not us, _him._"

"Yes, but 'him' doesn't even know about 'her'."

Her. The woman. Like Irene Adler, the greatest curse to his intellect, but also a gift to his life. He wondered if season six would have come out that year if he hadn't travelled back. 

"Well 'him' about to find out about 'her'."

He wondered if her should straight up agree to go, or bother with the entire nonsense about that horrendous sock again. 

"Really? Us gonna tell him?" It was getting dark outside, and the formatting of their sentences was getting worse. Sheldon grabbed his plate and left his room with a skip in his proverbial step. "Who's going to tell whom about what?" _Oh, the joys of correctly applied grammar._

"Sheldon!Hey!Hi..." They looked flustered.

"Hello Howard, Rajesh..."

"Right, so listen, what are you doing tomorrow afternoon?"

"What time?"

"Four thirty."

Ah, preevning. What a memory. Contrary to expectation, that was not a saying that took off. 

"Tomorrow preevning I'll be pre-sorting and pre-soaking for laundry night." Raj opened his mouth to question 'preevning' but Howard threw him a withering glare that roughly translated to "if you keep talking I'll hit you in the nuts."

"Okay. What if I were to tell you that tomorrow at four thirty you could meet a woman who has been scientifically chosen to be your perfect mate?" _I'd tell you that that site's matchmaking algorithm was the most beautiful piece of code to have ever been framed on my wall, even if it was a terrible and inefficient mess._

"I would tell you that all your time living with your mother has turned you loopy." Raj interrupted with a "But it's true!" Before Sheldon threw a derisive laugh and a "this is where you're supposed to say bazinga." 

Raj started talking, saying _something_, but at this point Sheldon had started going fuzzy again, his brain filled with thoughts of Amy. 

"I'll go." Oops. He hadn't meant to say that. Both men started talking over each other to persuade him to agree to something he'd already actually accepted, until they actually _realised _that fact and paused for a good few seconds, staring at each other and then at him, and then each other again. Their mouths were opening and closing at an even faster frequency, and Sheldon resisted the urged to close them and settled for rolling his eyes. "I'll go." He repeated, his tone stern. "It's better than listening to you two jibber jabber for hours." Besides, his patience was wearing warily thin. 

Howard nodded, his expression mildly unnerved. "Okay then!" he clapped his hands, his voice as fast as possibly so as to avoid Sheldon changing his mind. "Her name is Amy Farrah Fowler, you're meeting her for coffee tomorrow I will text you the time and address." He and Raj piled out of the door, pushing each other and bickering like the old married couple they were. Rubbing his aching head and failing to get his memories in order for the trillionth time, Sheldon poured himself a glass of water and went to his bed.

It was going to be a brilliant morning. 


End file.
